


what stars are made of

by TheOriginalSuki



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: All the genres, Angst, Ben Solo is a Mess, Ben Solo's calligraphy set, Drabbles, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rey loves him though, Sexual Tension, attempted humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:46:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22448146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOriginalSuki/pseuds/TheOriginalSuki
Summary: Stupid, beautiful, giant, stupid, mamal-eyed Ben Solo lured her onto his father's old freighter with a heart-plucking "I miss you" and promises of food.  Her two biggest weaknesses: sad-eyed Solo, and her stomach.[Reylo one-shots and drabbles.]
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 72
Kudos: 153





	1. The Wife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
> 
> “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of."
> 
> \-- C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

Rey woke in the low, narrow bunk of the Millenium Falcon and knew immediately she was not where she was supposed to be.

She sat up and swore. She was meant to be training Finn today on Ahch-To, after getting a look at a new recruit for the Academy. But stupid, beautiful, giant, stupid, mamal-eyed Ben Solo lured her onto his father's old freighter with a heart-plucking "I miss you" and promises of food. Her two biggest weaknesses: sad-eyed Solo, and her stomach. She could almost hear Master Skywalker laughing at her.

As usual during their frequent meetings, they devolved spectacularly from reserved and quiet affection, to blood-pounding bickering, finally spiralling into an aggressive makeout session. He had a rather large mouth and sometimes the only way to get him to shut up was to put her own mouth over it. Inbetween transitions, Ben cooked and she ate, suffering his condescending glances at her table manners -- which descended into yet another argument. ("I didn't say anything!" "You don't have to _say_ it, your _look_ is enough!") She wasn't sure when she had fallen asleep as they talked, voices dipping and climbing into the small hours of the morning, stuffed into the bunk, practically folded around one another. But she realised the moment consciousness returned: this was his degenerate plan all along.

She stood and stomped her foot on the floor. Huffed, pursed her lips, and closed her eyes, centering herself to pinpoint the location of this new world. Ben was no longer on the ship. So he'd spirited her away while she slept and then promptly abandoned her. She ought to take the Falcon and just leave him there. It'd serve him right.

As satisfying as it was to play out that fantasy, she resigned herself to fetching him. She smoothed out the sleep-dishevelled clothes and set out.

***

Ben Solo sat in a seedy cantina in an even seedier corner of Merhs, a space port city renowned for its black market and, oddly enough, music industry. His long face was a mask of concentration as he sat at the sabacc table, gaze flicking from his cards to his opponent. The picture of ease and confidence, in neat trousers, a jacket, and pilot's gloves. A tousel of black hair fell into his eyes, causing him to shove it up and out of the way continually.

He was _absolutely_ cheating. 

Even if he'd been so inclined to deal with a backwater degenerate with the respect he did _not_ deserve, the man's thoughts were so simple and easy to lift, the effort not to hear them was more trouble than it was worth. Rhan Mnaa was a caricature straight out of Ben's old storybooks, complete with black, twirly moustache. It was hard to take him seriously. 

Over the rim of his cards, Ben said easily, "Look, if you want to fold now, I'll take the parts and still pay you the credits. That's pretty generous."

Rhan's laughter howled. The pitch of it just-so. Ben considered punching him. 

"You must have a terrible hand if you're trying to bargain."

Ben shrugged.

Rhan laid down his hand. "Pure Sabacc."

Ben raised his brows then put down his cards. "Idiot's Array."

The twirly black moustache tremored. In a violent sweep, Rhan pushed back from the table, crashing chairs and toppling drinks. Ben mirrored the movements, back and away, ready.

"You -- you cheated!"

"Can't prove it." Ben's laconic reply.

The man fisted his hands, once, twice. In an instant, he made a decision, and reached beneath his coat for the until-now hidden and contraband blaster. Ben reached for his; then he remembered he'd been made to leave it outside the establishment before entering.

He only just dodged the blaster fire by stepping aside with a pivot. Glass shattered, followed by deafening silence. All at once, a murmur stirred, which then roared to a din, as patrons and employees alike responded to the disturbance. Someone's drink had been blaster-smashed. And from the gathering storm of sound around, was not happy about it. A rather large Gamorrean swayed toward Ben, obviously mistaking the direction of the blaster fire as coming from him. So Ben dived underneath the sabacc table and started to crawl his way toward the exit. 

Things were not going according to plan. 

He wanted that part for the Falcon; he'd been looking for months. God only knew how long it would take for him to be able to locate another one. If he could get to his blaster, he could take what he needed and be on his way.

As he squeezed his way beneath the narrow tables, the disturbance in the cantina imploded into an all-out brawl.

He spotted a clear path to the door. Just as he was about to make a dash toward it, something large and furry grabbed hold of him from behind, dragging, and lifted. Ben's experience with Wookies was not a passing one. If he'd pissed this one off, he'd have a lot to answer for. The creature held him as though by the scruff of his neck and growled in his face. 

At just the same moment, a hooded figure stepped through the doorway, and the yellow shaft of a lightsaber plunged to life. "Let him go."

The din lowered to a simmer, and the entrance of the hooded figure drew the attention of everyone in the room.

Rhan, who had been busy dodging the attentions of the insulted Gamorrean, looked begrudgingly around to his gang and nodded. The Wookie set Ben down with little grace. Ben stumbled for balance, shrugging his jacket back into place. The hooded figure tossed him a staff and he caught it -- swinging it and bringing it down to his side, at the ready.

"I forgot," Rhan said, "about the Jedi wife."

Ben frowned, out of breath. " _I_ was Kylo Ren, you know." He looked around expectantly, into a sea of blank faces. "Supreme Leader of the First Order? _Really_?"

A rogue agent (he thought it might have been a Toydarian, looking to cause trouble) threw a glass at someone's jaw, and the cantina crowd devolved into fighting again.

"Was this side-trip really necessary?" Rey said, half-pout and half-chastise, keeping the lightsaber at the ready and her eyes locked on their opposition.

"Really, really necessary," he assured her. He couldn't spare a glance at her as they backed against one another, but he didn't need to use the Force to feel her eyes roll.

"And when were you going to take me back to Ahch-To?" She jerked seamlessly to block some wayward blaster fire. "Hm?"

He shifted to miss a lunging club, replying between huffs. "As soon as you agree to marry me."

Another strike from the saber.

God, he was dumb. "No, I'm not marrying you." It was mean, she knew, but she wanted to bring the arrogance down a notch. She still felt moody at being kidnapped. Though it was pretty typical for their relationship.

"Why not?" It didn't sound nearly as deflated as she'd hoped.

She kicked deftly into the body of an armored Clawdite who almost got a jab in at Ben with a mean-looking daggar, then pivoted to split a chair in half as it careened toward them. What followed was a panted, clipped conversation. 

"Remember that one time -- on Jakkuu -- when I asked you to get me a drink, only -- it had to be a certain type of drink -- and the other scavengers -- got giggly -- and started watching us -- " For a moment the immediate circle around them was absent of harmful bodies, and she swung her head toward him to continue, "and they handed you a cup of wine and then hid me? And you had to go around the crowd of people and try to find me to give me the cup?"

"And they kept handing you around behind a wall of bodies until I just reached in and grabbed you and then they laughed like I was the galaxy's biggest idiot? But then you drank and they applauded like it was the first time they'd ever seen anyone imbibe alcohol?" He grabbed her arm and swung it upward in a smooth arc, using her lightsaber to parry a flying projectile. "Yes, what about it?"

"That's a scavenger wedding custom. We _are_ married."

"What?" His stance dropped, demanding. "When were you gonna tell me this?" The dismembered leg of a stool hit him square on the temple, dropping a curtain of darkness around him.

***

He woke, sprawled on the floor of the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, and from what he could tell they were already in hyperdrive. He shifted a little; a pounding at his temple drew out a long, low groan. He sat up and the cockpit spinned. A very wobbly Rey swam into his vision.

"You're not supposed to have a blaster," she told him, holding his very own out to him. "It's one of the major conditions of your parole -- no weapons."

He patently ignored her insinuation, squinting, and took it in hand, like he didn't know what it was for. "This? This isn't mine."

She pressed her lips together at his lie.

"How did you ...?"

"With a lot of begging, promises, skilful intervention, and a bit of Jedi mind tricks."

"Did you get the part?"

"Of course I did."

"Did you carry me all the way back here yourself?"

"Of course not! You're the mass of a Death Star soaking wet! ... I used the Force..."

"That's ... gotta be inappropriate use of the Force if I've ever heard of it."

She tried to scowl but it turned into a laugh.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute." He put out his hand and tried, rather artlessly, to stand on his own two feet.

Rey followed him from where she'd been crouching before him on the floor, hands out as if to catch him. She reached up to touch the temple, lips pursed in a sympathetic _oh_.

"We've been married this whole time? And you didn't tell me? And -- ?"

She raised her eyebrows and craned her neck, indicating for him to go on with the whisper of a smile.

His face clouded over as he lost his nerve.

She grinned, an entire galaxy in her smile. "I could have at least let you get to third base?"

Ben Solo was dead.


	2. The Wife 2

Rey crossed one line too many with the marriage thing. She knew because Ben sulked. He sulked _out loud_.

He sulked so loud that the deafening silent treatment he gave her extended to his contorting around her mental feelers, like a naughty child sidling past a sleeping dog. Like she _wouldn't notice_. Worst of all, he sulked in earnest.

Rey threw away her tools and resigned herself to her fate. Ben Solo was about to win himself a long overdue honeymoon.

***

She found him folded nearly in half in his childhood bunk, bouncing a ball off the far wall; stopping it mid-air; flinging it with the Force again.

She sat at the foot of his bed, angling her torso toward him. She tried for _stern Jedi master_ aura. Then his lip trembled, and she tripped headfirst into _lovesick ingenue_.

"Don't be mad," she said.

"I'm not."

She inclined her head, waiting.

He caught the ball and sat up. Peeled her layer by layer with too-deep eyes. "You let me keep asking you, Rey. I didn't -- I thought maybe --" He shook his head. Glanced away.

She slid further up on the bunk and reached out for his hand. He let her take it. 

Sieve-like, his inner world poured into her, flooding every corner. She'd navigated his seas before, many times. It wasn't something one got used to. Inner Ben churned, full and turbulent. Capricious as a summer storm. Colors and impressions assaulted her: things words could only dimly convey. She met the mocking devils of insecurity, guilt, self-loathing even as he met them; knew them _intimately_.

And bound up and tangled with it all, the shimmering trail of _her --_ an anchor holding it all together.

She climbed carefully into his lap and wrapped her arms around him. He responded, hiding his face in the curve where shoulder met neck. She was glad he couldn't see her blushing.

"I'm sorry," she said -- and tried to press into him what was too real for words.

He murmured into her clavicle.

She drew in a deep breath and let it slide out. No going back now. "We'll -- we'll take tonight, okay?"

He pulled away and looked at her, eyes timid, full of caution. She stroked a black lock behind the lobe of his ear, and was rewarded with the softest of smiles.

***

_Tonight_ morphed into three days. Turned out once he got a taste of them, Ben Solo was loath to let go of his marital privileges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just can't help myself. Even my attempts at humor turn sappy.


	3. The Wife 3

It was Ben's turn to wake up in a different place than he fell asleep. 

Oh, he was still on the Falcon. Still in the outgrown bunk where he'd crawled in with his disgruntled wife, who nevertheless let him make love to her -- she liked to feign being inconvenienced, but when he had her open and vulnerable, her body guileless as the bond, she couldn't hide her deep satisfaction. Didn't want to. He'd enjoyed learning his way around her the past three days. Neither of them had really known what they were doing, but that didn't matter. They were figuring it out together.

Impressions of last night sat warm on the edges of sleep. Then he was drawn into full consciousness by the Force signature of Ahch-To. It strummed on his nerves like a freaking mandolin. He squirmed around in his bunk only to find his arms disappointingly empty. He kicked the covers off and planted his feet on the side of the bed. The first thing he noticed was a scrap of paper. _Paper_. Where in the galaxy...?

Then he remembered that he'd acquired some a few cycles ago on an excursion to the Outer Rim from a junk shop that specialised in outdated tech and novelty souvenirs. It was a brilliant find, really, because the backwoods proprietor didn't know how much Ben would actually be willing to pay for it.

The square of paper lay on the bare floor and he stooped over it to read the fluid ink he knew to be scrawled in the unpractised hand of Rey Now-Solo: THIS WEY. And an arrow pointing to the door.

He picked it up in his fingers and straightened, following the instructions. He found yet another piece of paper in the corridor, with a similar arrow. He followed the trail of paper scraps through the Falcon until they brought him into the kitchen. The last note sat on three stacked ready-meals, already prepared and sealed to keep warm, prompting him to EAT ME and HAVE A GUD MORNING, SWEETHART. He had to let the smile free at the awkward attempt at affection -- lifted from his own, no less -- or risk spraining something. Could he admit to himself that he was grateful she hadn't attempted to make food from scratch? Yes, yes he could. Three regular portions should be enough to get him started for the day.

Then the tell-tale muscle beneath his eye jumped as he realised -- Rey had gotten into his calligraphy set.

***

Mother hen Finn was on in full-force this morning. He clucked and coddled, bustling around Rey with equal parts affection and annoyance. She fielded his questions as best -- and as vaguely -- as she could.

"Didn't you get the transmission I sent you?"

"Yes, but you said you would be back two days ago, with no indication of who you were with and where you were going."

Rey pulled up on the steep path to let a group of porgs waddle by. "I'm so sorry, Finn." She turned around to face him. "I should have sent word when I knew it was going to be longer than expected." She put her hand on his arm, needing to communicate sincerity. "I appreciate you."

He lowered his brows at her and shook his head faintly. The action was not without tenderness. "He took you, didn't he?"

Rey opened her mouth, worked it, and shut it again. There was no answer here that was going to spare her trouble.

"He did."

But it was not she that said it. The reply drew her attention over Finn's shoulder up the path a-ways, where Ben strode over the rocky terrain, incongruously steady for the size of him, moving with the muscle memory of familiarity in a well-trod place. He couldn't have even been looking where he was going. Because his gaze fell steadily where Rey's hand rested on Finn's arm.

Finn appeared to draw his composure before turning around to give Ben Solo a once over and a scoff. Rey took the opportunity to beat a quick retreat down the trail.

Finn, by nature, was self-preserving. It took an act of extreme conviction and courage to side with the Resistance against the First Order. But when it came to Rey -- his first and best friend -- he could dive into altruism with the best of them. He pinned Ben with his eyes. "You can't just abduct her whenever you feel like it. She's the last Jedi! Should I even bother to mention how you're _not supposed to be here_? Ahch-To -- and all planets with strong channels to the Dark Side -- are off limits to y-. Hey!"

Ben had swept by and around him to trail after Rey. Finn wasn't about to be ignored. "If I contacted the UR Council of Worlds and reported you, you'd sit up and pay attention."

"Look," Ben threw out, not even bothering to turn his head, "I don't think I should have to ask permission from a tr--" he bit back just in time, "-- from a padawan to fraternise with my own wife."

It was Finn's turn to be dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanons are that Rey cannot spell and cannot cook. She's so unnaturally good at Force-things I feel like this evens it out a bit.
> 
> So grateful for each and every comment. <3


	4. His

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diverting from the Millennium Falcon Ben Solo universe to visit a Kylo Ren universe where Rey is the olive branch between the First Order and the Resistance. Lots of confused sexual tension and affectionate bickering. Also, Phasma is still alive forsomereason.
> 
> Also posted on tumblr.

“Don’t _ever_ undermine my authority in front of General Hux again.”  
  
He pivots so abruptly Rey has to stumble backward to prevent from running into him. He reaches out with one gloved hand and grips her arm, steadying her. She makes the mistake of looking up – directly into the face full of poorly-mastered passions.

They stand in the council room on the Steadfast, though everyone else has departed. Rey doesn’t actually get a say in First Order procedure, and won’t until she submits to Force training by the Supreme Leader. Like that will ever happen. The fragile ceasefire with the Resistance rests on a knife’s edge. The two of them suspended in a kind of purgatory. And Rey won’t risk upsetting the balance either way – either by joining him or leaving him. So she insists on escorting him on all matters of office which she can divine with some degree of certitude – from whatever he lets slip in passing, the gaps in his known schedule, Hux’s moodiness, and general star trooper gossip.

The first time, she interrupted a very tense report by dragging a chair from the corner up to the end of the table, wedging it between Phasma and Pryde. After that, Kylo made sure she had a designated place to sit – on his right hand side, at a more-than-satisfactorily safe glaring distance.

She pointedly jerks her arm out his grip and feigns casual interest. "What _is_ it with you and him, anyway?“

"Don’t change the subject. Rey.”

She makes a small hum in her throat and looks up at him, trying very hard not to look affected. He shouldn’t be able to put her out this way.

“Do you understand me? _I_ am the master here. You _will_ cooperate if you want to have your _positive_ influence on the new regime.”

“Yes, _Master_.” She realises it is a mistake, as soon as the words are out. Oh, why must she bait him? She can’t help herself, he’s so, so –

He’s looking darkly down on her still; but somehow the texture of it has changed. A warning pulses from her lizard brain. It branches throughout her nervous system. His animal-soft eyes, forever hinting at a depth just out of reach, search her face. It gives her the odd sensation of watching rainfall in reverse.

She swallows. Licks her lips.

Wrong thing to do! There is a hitch to his breathing and his pupils dilate. His face lowers toward hers, crashing through any safety perimeters previously erected; his arm snakes around to cup the back of her head and tilt it up to him, just so. His eyes close.

His familiar presence, steel-sharp and smooth, darts into her mind, parting through it like hands in a curtain. His work is formal, unaffecting. Which is not at all what one would expect from the man barely holding it together at any given moment, Kylo Ren. Rey has the uneasy feeling that he is making a concerted effort to be so.

She cannot quite grasp onto what he is looking for. Whatever it is, it’s none of his business. She resolves to give him hell for this later. Maybe lurk through his Academy-days when he is asleep and his guard is all too permeable. Maybe she’ll find the little box neatly labelled _Armitage Hux_ and unpack it with delicious spite. She broadcasts her plans for revenge loud and clear. Lift _that_ , Ben Solo. She thinks the hated name at him with extra rancour.

Then his searching gets wider, shallower; he is only skimming, flipping through the pages. He has not found what he is looking for.

He lets her go then. The abrupt end causes them to physically repell one other, scattering several steps between them. Rey blinks, trying valiantly to retain her indignation. But he’s looking at her with a strange kind of serenity, the likes of which is so unnatural on him a tiny traitorous part of her worries he is ill.

She opens her mouth to take a deep breath. Again, he is watching her too close, with too much interest. "W-what?“ she stammers.

"I - I was just checking – I thought –” He closes his eyes and turns his head, first to one side, then the other.

Rey cringes; her voice betrays an alarming amount of vulnerability. "Ch-checking for what–?“

Kylo opens his eyes onto her. He takes a step back, then another. Why can’t she decrypt the look on his face? Some Kylo-specific hybrid of relief and envy? Why does it burn her skin like noon-day sunlight on the equator of Jakku?

He starts to turn, his cloak fanning out, rippling behind.

"Ben – checking for _what_!”

But his retreating back is all the answer she’s going to get.

Then he is gone. And Rey won’t think – no, she definitely won’t think on – how his departure vibrates along the same pitch as when she wished, oh how she wished, for a family to come and take the loneliness away.  
  
***

Kylo didn’t want to dwell on why he urgently needed to _know_. Why that phrase, coming from her, should cause his mind to go _there_.

_Yes, Master._

It was absurd. He knew she didn’t mean it like _that_. The scavenger girl possessed the sex appeal of an adolescent, and the body to match. And yet, the question mark, once materialised, pressed iron-hot into his psyche. That burning – it was new but also familiar. Anger with a special sort of desperation.

He had to _know_.

Oh, she would give him hell for it later. He was aware of her telling him as much; but only as one is aware of someone throwing tiny pebbles into water from a distance. He was unwavering. And as he filed through her experiences, her memories, looking for that which did not rightfully _belong_ to him, he found … nothing. Nothing at all. Rey was as fresh and untouched as first snowfall.

He couldn’t begin to put into ordered thought what he felt about this revelation. He snapped back before the slideshow of impressions could cross over to her. They landed like lightning strikes in the shadowy corners of his brain, illuminating briefly, then going dark again.

When he at last lies down to sleep, he allows the words to form, however nebulous. Kylo Ren does not want anyone in the galaxy – man, woman, or sentient – to have that kind of carnal knowledge of Rey.

Rey is _his_.


	5. Familiar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone requested a fic taking place between the bridal carry and the interrogation in The Force Awakes. Here it is, enjoy!
> 
> Also posted on tumblr.

Kylo Ren carries the girl himself onto the ship and into the med bay. She’s not diminutive and the work winds him. But he won’t let go of something this important – the map, that is. He needs to get to Luke Skywalker, before the Resistance does.

  
The troopers escort him to the med bay, where he lays the girl onto the examination table. He dismisses them. Then he stands back but does not leave, as the droid trundles around, measuring pulse, blood pressure, temperature. She is fit for interrogation. Kylo sends the droid away. He is able to look at her more closely now. She is very young indeed, barely a woman, and the knots at the back of her head are the pigtails of a child. But she is healthy-looking, warm of skin, slack of mouth, and rather pretty. He gets the sudden, dropping sensation that he has seen her before.

  
She stirs, and his thoughts scatter. She is not supposed to wake this soon.

  
Her eyes flutter. Kylo hangs back, watching. She is not restrained. She opens her lids and stares at the ceiling, vegetative. Then slowly, slowly she turns her head.

  
He wonders if she will scream. This is soon replaced by a different kind of wonder. The girl’s lips drift into a lazy smile.

  
“It’s you.”

  
_It’s ….?_

_  
_ Her incongruous reaction throws his brain into gear. She doesn’t seem to recall the fear from before, when she ran from him in the woods; and the bitter-tasting desire to kill him is absent. He takes a few steps toward her, and peers into her face. Her smile doesn’t contract. Neither do her pupils. They are wide as though still in sleep. She is in a liminal state of consciousness. It is possible, though rare, that this can happen after manipulating the hypothalamus. She will dip back into sleep before awaking to full consciousness.

  
Satisfied, he steps back.

  
She shifts to her side and sits up.

  
“It’s you,” she says again.

  
Kylo shakes his masked head. "You don’t know me.“

  
"Yes,” she says. Her words slur. "Yes. I would know you anywhere. You’ve never been so … solid before. But you’re always there. In my dreams. I never remember when I wake up. 

  
“This doesn’t feel like a dream. Are you real?”

  
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t move.

  
“Do you know my name?” she asks.

  
He shakes his head. He holds off diving into her mind. Not yet. Not while she is vulnerable, exposed like this. Even monsters have their limits.

  
“Funny. Neither do I.”

  
“Do you know mine?” he asks. His voice crackles through the modulator.

  
“Yes. I mean … no. Not the word-name. Just the you-name. It’s how I can tell it’s you, beneath that mask.” She scrutinizes him, as though by sheer will she can penetrate it. "Will you take that off?“

  
It is an eerie feeling, the recognition without being recognized. She seems so sure she knows him, but how can she? Who is he if he is not Kylo Ren, the Jedi-killer, with the blood and tears trailing him like keening ghosts? If she doesn’t know him enough to hate him, how can she act with such familiarity?

  
She has mistaken him for someone else.

  
He clicks off his mask, to show her that she is not who she believes him to be.

  
But her smile flares up, renewed.

  
Kylo feels distinctly uncomfortable. He does not like to be looked upon directly.

  
"I like your face,” she says, in the lazy, delayed speech of a dipsomaniac.

  
Kylo jerks. Lifts his arms to replace the mask. But this distresses her, and she tries to come off the examination table to land on her feet. Her legs collapse on impact. Kylo has to choose. He lets the helmet drop and darts forward to catch her. 

  
He lifts her as before, but this time she puts her arms around his neck, helping to disperse her weight.

  
Kylo tries to deposit her onto the examination table.

  
But – she – 

  
– she won’t – 

  
– let _go_.

  
He feels like he is trying to shake off a some grass or leaf or dust clinging to a limb. She only tightens her grip and sighs into his cowl.

  
This is most objectionable.

  
But he can’t risk damage to the asset. So he maneuvers himself onto a seat in the corner of the med bay, effectively placing her in his lap.

  
How long does she intend to hold onto him –? Kylo swipes his arm forward. The door to the med bay closes with a hiss and locks.

  
From the fabric of his cowl, she drawls, “You won’t hurt me.”

  
“I will,” he speaks lowly. "If I have to. I’m a bad man.“

  
But something about her breathing tells him she is barely with him.

  
"You won’t remember any of this,” he tells her; he tells himself. "When you next wake, you will hate me, and we will be enemies. You will have forgotten.“

  
"I don’t want to forget.” Her voice, distant but certain.

  
“You always forget. You said so yourself.”

  
He doesn’t know what makes him play along with her mistaken fancy, her misplaced trust. Perhaps it is a bit of respite, to be taken for someone else, if only for a little while.

  
Kylo holds her. Her arms slacken. Her breathing comes, deep and uniform. He doesn’t move just yet. He closes out the space around him, submerging into his senses. Allows himself not to think but to be, as in meditation; with the weight of her pressing a gentle comfort and her breathing the tempo to which he regulates his.

  
When he takes her to the interrogation room, he insists on setting her up himself. He takes care with her head, tilting it upward so she can breathe without obstruction. A trooper brings him his helmet. He replaces it, a swoosh of compressors and of his own relief.  
  
When she wakes this time, Kylo will watch her and let her rage wash over him like a bath of acid. He will take off his helmet when she calls him a monster and not regret that she doesn’t know him. He will be brutal, and plunge into her mind to take what is not his. She will clasp him, and wrestle back, turning his own weapon against himself. He will experience the kindness and cruelty with which he moves through this life and wonder that it still hurts, fresh after all this time.


	6. Good Night's Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on this beautiful fanart:
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/o0-snowdrop-0o/613277389710131200

Ben still has nightmares. He jolts awake expecting to see a feral-eyed Luke Skywalker brandishing a lightsaber over his head, ready to cut him down. He gets up and moves around the Millennium Falcon, changing positions. Prowling the corridors. Tonight, he settles in the cockpit, in the pilot's seat, which is where Rey finds him.

"Can't sleep?" A rhetorical question. He knows she dreams them, too. It's why he's so desperate to be rid of them.

He shakes his head. She holds out her hand to him, palm down, so he has to take it the way he once offered. If feels submissive to him, but fitting. She hauls him up of the pilot's seat and walks him back to her sleeping berth. Some clothes of hers are strewn about, and he guesses that she started to undress before dropping into the mattress like a felled tree. (They work hard, the both of them, shouldering the shared burden of rebuilding the galaxy.) They neither of them wear shirts, but the breast-band around Rey's chest affords her some modesty.

She lets him go and dives into the bed, turning around once, twice -- like the desert-dwelling mammal she is. She settles on her back and holds her arms out to him, flapping her hands in a gesture to join her.

They haven't chased intimacy since the kiss on Exegol, and Ben feels maybe it was a fluke, a slip of her convictions in a moment of gratitude. But then, she stayed with him. And she continued to stay with him. And her thoughts and feelings around him are so bright, through the Force bond, through the lesser senses, they thaw the parts of him where even rage failed.

He hesitates a moment before climbing -- with care, she is no diminutive, but he is a great collection of limbs and muscle and mass -- into the bed, expecting her to -- what, scoot over and make room for him? -- but she has opened her arms and she encloses him in them so that he is well and truly trapped, pressing him into the cradle of her chest and clavicle. Her legs slide against his and lock him against her. She places his arm along her side and sweeps upward with her own, resting it there. She swirls circles into the back of his neck, tracing nails on skin. The space between them bleeds away. They meld together, his ear to her heart, the metronome of her pulse a lullaby drawing him down, into her dark, warm sea. Her breathing stirs the hair over his brow.

He takes a long, shuddered breath, as though he has just been born. He's not sure, but he thinks she smiles. Her words slow and droop with sleep. "There. That's better."

And it is.

"...Good night."

It _is_.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr @theOriginalSuki


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